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Samsung and Nokia, two companies that have released or are preparing to release competitors to Apple's iPhone, are taking advantage of a rare misstep from the iPhone maker to tout the abilities of their handsets. Both companies have jabbed at Apple over the last few days about Apple's ongoing woes in the mapping sector. Samsung took to the company's Google+ page to take a dig at Apple, while Nokia benchmarked its own maps versus those of both Google and Apple in a post on the company's blog.

Samsung, no stranger to needling Apple's fans and products, posted yesterday an image of a Galaxy S III running Google Maps. The accompanying text encouraged readers to "'+1' if you're about to be helping your friends find their way using Google Maps on your Galaxy phone," an unmistakeable jab at Apple's iOS 6 Maps app. Samsung's Android devices still have access to the Google Maps app Apple removed with the release of iOS 6.
Nokia, meanwhile, touts its mapping solution as the world's most advanced location platform. "Unlike our competitors," Nokia's blog post reads, "which are financing their location assets with advertising or licensing mapping content from third parties, we completely own, build and distribute mapping content, platform and apps." Advertising is the main way Google makes its money, and Apple's new mapping solution is largely built on data licensed from TomTom. The blog post then goes on to lay out the advantages Nokia's maps have over the competition, including augmented reality, offline navigation, and turn-by-turn navigation for more than 110 countries.
Even as the iPhone 5 has gone on to phenomenal sales, the maps fiasco has proved a rare misstep, with users complaining about it, media outlets focusing on it, and now Apple's competitors seizing upon it. Apple has issued a statement reminding customers that its Maps application is at version 1.0 and asking for patience. The company is said to have put its Maps team on "lockdown mode" in order to fix the more grievous errors in the program.

Works for me. I like having turn by turn voice navigation which we were never ever to get on iOS from Google. Nobody seems to fault Google maps for that omission. Just like antennagate, a hyped-up controversy.

Amazing how one app out of hundreds of thousands, in version 1.0, can bring out the jealousy. It seems that the world's fastest handset, which stomps the competition to a pulp, simply confounds Samsung and Nokia. Heck, Samsung seems more to be saying that we WISH everyone would be willing to queue up in huge numbers for our equipment.

Amazing how one app out of hundreds of thousands, in version 1.0, can bring out the jealousy. It seems that the world's fastest handset, which stomps the competition to a pulp, simply confounds Samsung and Nokia. Heck, Samsung seems more to be saying that we WISH everyone would be willing to queue up in huge numbers for our equipment.

]It will get worse, the jealous pseudo-gripes that is, even as the app's performance gets better and better.

The next phase in this odious campaign, mark my words, will be spiteful suggestions of rifts within the star-studded product development teams, all squarely aimed at (iOS software supremo) Scott Forstall and "said to involve" (hardware design VP) Jon Ives.

As fjose1929 commented earlier in this thread: "shyster is as shyster does".

Wait for it.

Here's hoping the high-flying young Apple execs, who are doing a fantastic synergistic job, can see through the vicious subterfuge to come, and rise above it.

Works for me. I like having turn by turn voice navigation which we were never ever to get on iOS from Google. Nobody seems to fault Google maps for that omission. Just like antennagate, a hyped-up controversy.

Why would it have never been possible? That's what I would like to understand...

Jesus,
a bunch of fanboys can't understand that iphone users had a map app which was very detailed and simply did its job.
Not, let me quote Apple:

Apple-designed from the ground up (and the sky down), this built-in app shows you incredible detail — even on full zoom. Maps keeps street names where they belong and keeps you heading in the right direction with spoken turn-by-turn navigation and real-time traffic updates.

I did the bold. So, fanboys, this is what Apple writes on its web page. And it's clear false advertising. Please, shut up with your "this is a 1.0 version" bullshit. The "incredible detail" in a lot of cases all around the world appears to make whole cities to a dessert. I don't understand your mind where you have to defend every poop coming from Apple as the best thing that ever happened to the mankind. Praise Apple when they do their job, but don't defend something that is obviously a complete failure at this time.

I can accept Apple Maps' 1.0 performance, if Apple wasn't intent on removing Google's MUCH more evolved performance.

Apple wasn't intent on removing it, the Apple-google contract wasn't renewed. Google was holding back key features, like turn-by-turn GPS (only for Android), so Apple went with an alternative company, OpenStreetMaps and TomTom (and Yelp for the business listings).

Jesus,
a bunch of fanboys can't understand that iphone users had a map app which was very detailed and simply did its job.
Not, let me quote Apple:
I did the bold. So, fanboys, this is what Apple writes on its web page. And it's clear false advertising. Please, shut up with your "this is a 1.0 version" bullshit. The "incredible detail" in a lot of cases all around the world appears to make whole cities to a dessert. I don't understand your mind where you have to defend every poop coming from Apple as the best thing that ever happened to the mankind. Praise Apple when they do their job, but don't defend something that is obviously a complete failure at this time.

False advertising, or just usual Apple marketing hyperbole? This is nothing new.

Apple wasn't intent on removing it, the Apple-google contract wasn't renewed. Google was holding back key features, like turn-by-turn GPS (only for Android), so Apple went with an alternative company, OpenStreetMaps and TomTom (and Yelp for the business listings).

But this doesn't make sense. The Google Maps API is documented, all of Google's APIs are well-documented. Unless you can claim that Google has been using undocumented parts of their API, I don't see why Apple couldn't have modified their app they distribute with iOS to support turn-by-turn.

I think this was more of a power grab, Apple felt it was a liability for Google to control this part of their business.

[QUOTE name="mr100percent" url="/t/492804/apple-competitors-toss-barbs-over-ios-6-map-troubles#post_4192504"]
Apple wasn't intent on removing it, the Apple-google contract wasn't renewed. Google was holding back key features, like turn-by-turn GPS (only for Android), so Apple went with an alternative company, OpenStreetMaps and TomTom (and Yelp for the business listings).

But this doesn't make sense. The Google Maps API is documented, all of Google's APIs are well-documented. Unless you can claim that Google has been using undocumented parts of their API, I don't see why Apple couldn't have modified their app they distribute with iOS to support turn-by-turn.[/quote]

I guess that's a reasonable theory, although a little weird that they would prevent Apple from writing their own code that would take advantage of these parts of Google's API. Besides, now that the contract has expired, why couldn't have Apple have went ahead with these additions if it were about contracts?

(c) No Navigation, Autonomous Vehicle Control, or Enterprise Applications. You must not use the Service or Content with any products, systems, or applications for or in connection with any of the following:

(i) real time navigation or route guidance, including but not limited to turn-by-turn route guidance that is synchronized to the position of a user's sensor-enabled device.

Also, this gem:

1.5 Changes to the Terms. Google reserves the right to make changes to the Terms from time to time. When these changes are made, Google will make a new copy of the Terms available at http://code.google.com/apis/maps/terms.html (or such successor URLs that Google may designate from time to time). You understand and agree that if you use the Service after the date on which the Terms have changed, Google will treat your use as acceptance of the updated Terms. If a modification is unacceptable to you, you may terminate this agreement by ceasing use of the Maps API(s).

I wonder if this Google stipulation is a partial avoidance of liability issue for them? I mean, when you get into turn-by-turn you get into all of those in-car GPS devices, many of which I'd imagine don't have an uplink (or a reliable uplink) to update map data. If this is so, Google would not be able to provide QA.

Yes, the Google Maps API is well-documented and supports all features of the previous Google Maps app for iOS.

The problem is that it's only free for casual developers/users -- usage is capped (like geocode requests, which happens every time you "find" a location in the maps app) and there are restrictions on how you can use the API if you're using it for free.

To gain unlimited (or sufficiently high) API usage, one must pay for the "enterprise" Google Maps API license, which is not cheap -- for Apple, maybe, but it would be on a device-by-device basis, and I don't see Apple plopping down $2,000 to $20,000 per year for each iPhone it sells just to license Google Maps.

The new maps app isn't a complete disaster -- it gets the job done for the most part. It certainly isn't Google Maps, but in a year or two, with some tweaking, I can believe it may rival Google Maps. It's a step backward, but sometimes you must take one step back before going two steps forward (to flip the old adage around). Apple's involvement in this new maps app will benefit a lot of people, plus help to increase the accuracy of OpenStreetMaps overall, for all users -- not just iOS users.